


Earthly Delights

by Argyle



Category: Good Omens
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-20
Updated: 2006-10-20
Packaged: 2019-02-11 20:55:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12943701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: In which food is talked about but not consumed. Eden!fic.





	Earthly Delights

It was happening again. The serpent was staring into space.

Aziraphale had caught him at it occasionally; he had seen that long neck arching up through the verge, and those unblinking eyes cast in this direction or that. It wasn’t that the angel was in want of company or conversation, but rather that he couldn’t help but wonder what Crawly was up to.

“It isn’t good, and no mistake.” Aziraphale cleared his throat, and leaned forward, bracing his hands on his knees as he balanced himself on the edge of the gate. Then he hopped down. “Hello?” he called.

Crawly didn’t budge.

“Hey,” Aziraphale prompted, a little later and a little louder. “You there.”

“I have a name.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Right.”

“Um.” Aziraphale strode forward with a borrowed sort of certainty to meet Crawly on the sun-warmed meadow grass. “What are you looking at?”

“Foliage,” said Crawly.

“Do you... _like_ plants?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said.

The vegetation of the Garden was plentiful and numerous: wide, silken leaves gave way to blooms whose petals mimicked the motion of great butterflies. Here and there were groves of fruit trees and thickets of ripe raspberries, and birds of all colors and sizes were lost and found amongst the billowing hordes of ivy. A fox bounded out from a bramble, and another followed closely behind.

“I’ve an idea to put them in clay pots,” Crawly said suddenly.

Aziraphale blinked. “The foxes?”

“The plants.”

“I see.”

“The ones with the big, glossy leaves have the most character.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” said Aziraphale.

Crawly shrugged in the slightly alarming way that he had, a movement that began with his nose, wound its way down the coiled length of his body, and settled at the tip of his tail. Then he said, “I think they’d really tie the room together.”

“Um.” Aziraphale gestured to the group of tall, tapering, frond-capped trees which stood before them. “What are those called?”

“Palms.”

“Palms. Huh.”

“The squat ones beside them are witch hazel.”

“What about those?”

“Haven’t been named yet.”

“And those?”

“Rubber plants.”

“You’re pretty good at this,” said Aziraphale.

Crawly shrugged again, and then turned towards the Tree which grew at the center of everything. “It passes the time.”

After a long moment, Aziraphale said, “I bet they taste awful.”

“You could try one.”

Aziraphale took a step backwards. “Really, I don’t know who you think you are, saying such outrageous things. It’s almost--”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“And what _is_ the point?” Crawly asked, and slithered a bit closer. He rose up to stare evenly at the angel.

“For a person without limbs, you certainly ask a lot of questions.”

A moment passed, and it appeared that Crawly would laugh, but then he said, quite simply, “It’s the mileage that counts. Not the means.”

“And I suppose one might make a nice strudel or something.”

Crawly sniffed. “Blessed waste if you ask me.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. You really would.”

“Who knows what would happen when that sort of volatile substance hits the hearth.”

“And what happens when they’re uncooked?”

“Don’t _you_ know?”

“Of course I do!” A pause. “I was speaking hypothetically.”

“You don’t know.” Crawly said it with a shake of his long head, but his eyes failed to mirror the amusement in his voice. “Funny.”

Aziraphale stiffened. “I think you should leave,” he said.

“You want _me_ to leave?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

“I’ll bet you wouldn’t have,” Crawly murmured.

But he remained there, and was silent, or nearly. A neat breeze tugged upon every leaf and bough, and for several moments, the tapping and swelling and swishing rose to something not unlike a chorus; the garden was laughing.

Aziraphale heard it, shivered, and was certain that Crawly heard it too. Of course there was no way for him to prove it, having had little to no experience in the art of deciphering demonic thought patterns, but he was certain just the same. It was something, he reasoned, to do with the sanguine straightness of the serpent’s posture. But then again, no: he was surely mistaken. And then again, it had been a long day.

The serpent said, “Long week.”

The angel said, “I imagine they’re full of worms, anyway.”

Crawly looked him in the eye. “What?”

“Er.” Aziraphale swallowed. He told himself this: there was no reason he ought to be unnerved by those unblinking yellow slits. And he wasn’t. “The apples.”

“Oh, no,” said Crawly. “No. Can’t you see them? They’re perfect.”

Aziraphale did see them. There were hundreds of apples, each one a heavy ruby bauble tugging down on twig and limb. By any measure of physics, the Tree ought to have toppled over by the sheer weight of them, arms pulled asunder with the exhaustion of a traveler who has made it to the platform with one too many pieces of luggage.

And the serpent was correct: they were perfect.

“Hmm?” said Aziraphale.

“I said, it’s getting late.”

“Oh. Yes.” Aziraphale rolled his shoulders, and arched his back. He flexed his grip on his heavy sword, breathed in, and at last let the tip rest on the ground. Then he placed his hands atop the balled hilt.

“You know, there’s a pear tree down the way.”

“Pear?” Aziraphale felt his stomach rumble. “Another one of yours?”

“Naturally not,” said Crawly. He laughed at last, and the sound was deeper than his lithe frame suggested. “It’s just a pear tree.”

“It’s not _just_ a pear tree. Nothing is _just_ anything.”

“Fine. But they’re rather good, you know. The way the grains roll over one’s tongue. It isn’t exactly like sand -- not that I’ve eaten sand before -- and they’re sweet.”

Aziraphale nodded. He glanced down the way, and didn’t see any pear trees, though there was something sincere and quiet in Crawly’s tone. It wasn’t that he believed the serpent, but he didn’t _not_ believe him either. Besides which, Crawly had the longest tongue Aziraphale had ever seen, and it probably knew its way around a fruit stand.

“And there’re some grapes.”

Aziraphale smiled, feeling he was once again back on familiar territory. “You know, there are some interesting things that can be done with grapes.”

“Oh?” asked Crawly. “Like what?”

“Help me pick a good pear,” he said, “and I’ll tell you.”

“They’re all good. They’re perfect.”


End file.
